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A few weeks ago, my 2005 iBook finally croaked. Years I’ve been waiting for it to die so I could upgrade without guilt. And while browsing the Mac Store case selection, hugging my brand new MacBook Air I thought, “$45??? F-that. I can make my own G-D case.”

My own G-D case

True, I don’t have the fancy neoprene, but there are other ways to protect a laptop, right?

The following week I was in Park Slope and spied some beautiful hand-quilted pillows in the window of a home furnishing store. I couldn’t find any terribly similar images online, but something along these lines:

Your laptop needs a little padding (I assume, since laptop cases always have it… When it comes to technology, I mostly have no idea what I’m talking about). Who needs neoprene when we have QUILTING!

A quilt is like a sandwich. Fabric is the bread and batting is the good stuff.

I pulled out some Guatemalan ikat to be the face of my case and some basic whatever for the backing (I also lined the case, so the backing will never see the light of day).

Cut your pieces the size of your computer (or whatever it is you may be making a case for) plus 1 1/2″ all the way around to account for ease and seam allowance.

(Pay no attention to the pathetic girth of my batting. I ended up combining this batting I had laying around with a layer of stuffing that I also had laying around. If you’re buying batting, get some nice fluffy stuff, at least 1/2″ thick.)

Quilt Sandwich

Now you sew your sandwich together. There aren’t really any rules for this, sew it any which way you please. By hand, by machine, in stripes, zig-zags, diamonds, around the shapes in the pattern of your fabric. The world is your oyster! I hand-quilted mine with stripes to reiterate my striped fabric, using four different thread colors that coordinated with the colors in my fabric.

I like the hand-made aesthetic of purposefully imperfect stitching.

Once I finished quilting both sides of the case, I dug out a colorful zipper (long enough to go around the top corners, so getting your computer in and out of its case isn’t infuriating) and a lightweight lining (to hide the yucky innards)…

And assemble!

You know how to do that, right? My apologies to anyone who actually wants to know… I didn’t document it and I don’t have the patience to type it all out at this moment. Surely there are other helpful resources out there…